Module 6: Positive Good Replaces Necessary Evil

Module 6: Positive Good Replaces Necessary Evil

During the nineteenth century, cotton was the major agricultural crop and “the Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society the modern world has known.” (Foner 378) Slavery was referred to as a necessary evil but with his elegantly written words, George Fitzhugh, a Virginia lawyer, attempted to change the view of slavery from necessary evil to a positive good. This transition helped many to except slavery as the much needed foundation of the cotton industry. “In 1860, the economic investment represented by the slave population exceeded the value of the nation’s factories, railroads, and banks combined.” (Foner 379) With national economic success and articles written in support of the positive effects of slavery, it is understandable how Fitzhugh’s articles would be received in an optimistic light. However, looking back on history, it is the ownership of human’s that should be questioned and therefore Fitzhugh’s arguments would not resonate with us today even if they were worded just a bit differently.

With convincing words, George Fitzhugh in his article “The Universal Law of Slavery,” advocates slavery with such believability. He explains that the plantation master is a guardian, provider, and protector of his slaves and that the negro is irresponsible and would be a burden on society without the role of slave. He also makes it clear that the “negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of free competition.” (The Black American) If that is not enough, he states that slavery in America “relieves him from a far more cruel slavery in Africa…” (The Black American) In fact, “the negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and , in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them.” (The Black American) Individuals like George Fitzhugh convinced many that the slaves were happy, well cared for and better off for being slaves. Clearly, it was an opinion that slavery was a necessary part of the economic success that the United States was experiencing. And yet there was another opinion.

The 1800s saw cotton production grow from a thousand tons to a million tons. At the same time the slave population grew from 500,000 to over 4 million. (Zinn 129) The economy was booming. At this time it is important to ask, if slavery is a positive good why then were there so many slave rebellions? Could the answer be that the existence of slavery for plantation owners was a positive good, however the condition and treatment of the slaves was deplorable. John Little, a former slave, wrote: “…have received two hundred lashes in the day…Happy men we must have been! We did it to keep down trouble, and to keep our hearts from being completely broken…” (Zinn 130) Families were torn apart because a master decided to sell a single member of a family for profit. Some slaves, as many as a thousand every year escaped by running away. Some slaves escaped by using the Underground Railroad.(Foner 404) If slavery was a positive good, why did they resist doing the job they were told to do by pretending to be sick, stealing food, and committing armed assaults against individual whites? (Foner 403) According to Theodore Weld, “To argue that the rapid multiplication of any class in the community, is proof that such a class is well-clothed, well-housed, abundantly fed, and very comfortable, is as absurd as to argue that those who have few children, must, of course, be ill-clothed, ill-housed, badly lodged, overworked, ill-fed, &c. &c. True, privations and inflictions may be carried to such an extent as to occasion a fearful diminishment of population. That was the case generally with the slave population in the West Indies, and, as has been shown, is true of certain portions of the southern states.” (Weld)

Articles like those written by George Fitzhugh convinced many impressionable individuals that slavery was a positive good. The idea of slavery as a positive good allowed many to overlook the inhumane treatment of the slaves as both individuals and as families. It allowed a society dependent on slavery for economic success to overlook the fact that human ownership is wrong under any circumstance. It was a means to huge economic success experienced by the elite few, which sounds similar to the economic disparity between the rich and the poor today.

Source citation:

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History, Seagull Edition. New York: NY, 2009.

The Black American: A Documentary History, Third Edition, by Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, Scott, Foresman and Company, Illinois, 1976,1970

Weld, Theodore. "Excerpt from American Slavery As It Is." Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com.ez.ccclib.org/servlet/HistRC/ The letter of Mr. Barker, referred to in this report to the Legislature of Massachusetts, bears date August 19, 1837. The following are extracts from it. (Primary Source) --Theodore Weld's American Slavery As It Is was one of the earliest and most powerful abolitionist books. Published in 1839, a few years after Weld's conversion to the antislavery cause, it amasses a wealth of documentary evidence, drawn from a variety of sources, against the nation's peculiar institution.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Abridged Teaching Edition. New York: NY, 1980.